KALAMAZOO, MI-- The Kinetic Affect duo, Kirk Latimer and Gabriel Giron, have been showing youth at Lakeside Academy how to take charge of their problems with words.

They'll be showcasing what they've done at Chenery Auditorium Jan. 12. Kinetic Affect and local musicians will perform, the Mt. Zion Baptist Church choir will sing and Kalamazoo Mayor Bobby Hopewell will emcee, but the stars of the show will be current and former students of Lakeside Academy, the juvenile rehabilitation facility on Oakland Drive.

As Kinetic Affect, their performance poetry has helped Latimer and Giron deal with demons in their pasts, so the two set out to teach others to do the same. "Our work has grown and matured as we've begun to understand what it was that we were actually doing in our mission," Latimer said.

That mission is to show people how to turn personal negative life experiences into spoken word performance. They want people to know that "the scars that we have, the things that are making us ugly, are in fact what make us beautiful," he said.

If You Go

The poets have operated their nonprofit, Speak It Forward Inc., since 2008. They've done work and performances for Addiction Treatment Services in Traverse City, the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence, Kalamazoo County Juvenile Home, Calhoun County Juvenile Home and other groups and facilities.

At Lakeside, Kinetic Affect shows became workshops where students could develop and eventually present their spoken word pieces to families, caseworkers and staff. Their audience "would all be witness to youth who are some of the most damaged and broken offenders, and also victims, that we have in our country, and give them a chance to stand up in front of all these individuals and do a piece," he said.

Their "Titans' Speak" workshops became weekly therapy that encouraged self-reflection and connection with peers and community members.

The Chenery performance will show the community what it's like when "Titans' Speak," but it will also give current and former Lakeside students "a chance to take ownership of the things they've done and that have happened to them, and take away the power from those experiences that have labeled them negatively, and put a positive light on it, so they can take more control over the things that have happened to them in their lives," Latimer said.